


Daisies

by telluric_cry (perihadion)



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Father's Day, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24836830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perihadion/pseuds/telluric_cry
Summary: Just a little fic for Father’s Day: Aerith helps Barret spend some quality time with Marlene.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough & Barret Wallace, Barret Wallace & Marlene Wallace
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	Daisies

Four days. That was how long it had been since Barret had seen his daughter — the longest he had been without her since she was an infant. He had one photograph left of her, just the one which he kept in his wallet. The others had been burned up in Seventh Heaven. This one was his greatest treasure. He looked at it now. It had been taken several months ago. Marlene had changed so much just in that time. He wondered how much she was changing now, how much he was missing — how much he would miss.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. No use in crying. Tears never changed anything.

Aerith was so quiet he barely noticed her until she was beside him. She sat next to him and said nothing.

“Getting late,” Barret said. “You should think about turning in.” He pushed the drink which sat on the bar in front of him to the side, as if to suggest he was about to do the same. Aerith nodded.

“I wanted to thank you,” she said. “For saving me.”

Barret shifted in his seat. “Least I could do,” he said. He saw her fold her hands on the bar in front of her.

“Still,” she said. “I’d like to give you a gift, Barret.” He looked at her and she met his gaze. Her eyes shone with a strange determination in the half-light. He had the sense that this was a gift he could not refuse. “It’s something I can do,” she said. “Sometimes. Under the right conditions. It’s difficult but — I can take you to Marlene. Just for a little while.”

Barret felt his heart pound. “How?”

“In a dream. She wants to see you. She misses you.“

Barret swallowed. He looked at the picture of Marlene in his hand. “I miss her,” he said. He looked up at Aerith and nodded. “All right,” he said. “Do your thing.”

Aerith pushed her seat back from the bar and smoothed out her skirt. “Tonight,” she said with a smile.

* * *

Somewhere between sleep and waking Barret felt a hand ghost over his forehead and a strange, floral scent. For a moment he felt as if he were back in his bed in Corel, beside his wife — back in those days when everything seemed so wide open and full of possibility.

He heard a woman’s laugh, and then a child’s, and he opened his eyes.

“Daddy!”

He sat bolt upright in time to see Marlene catapult herself towards him. She threw herself into his arms with a force that almost knocked the wind from him. Her smiling face looked up at him and all he could do was hold her tight to him.

“Oh baby girl,” he said, burying his face in her hair. “It’s past your bedtime.”

He took a deep breath, and then carefully pushed himself up to standing with his gun arm; Marlene was cradled in his left with her arms reaching up and as far around his neck as they could. He looked around. They stood in a field of lilacs and daisies which stretched in all directions as far as the eye could see.

“I missed you, daddy,” Marlene said. He squeezed her a little tighter to him.

“Daddy misses you too, sweetheart,” he said.

He felt her small hands grip his neck a little tighter. “Aerith said you can’t come back yet,” Marlene said. Then, before he could respond, she said, “But she showed me something. You wanna see?”

Barret nodded, and gently placed her on the ground, kneeling so that they were almost face to face. Marlene thrust her hand forward. Around her wrist was a delicate bracelet made from daisies threaded together. “Did you make that?” he asked, and Marlene nodded, beaming. He ruffled her hair a little with his left hand. “What a clever little girl I have.”

Marlene shook her head, “You have to make one too, daddy!”

Barret chuckled to himself, looking around at the flowers which surrounded them. “Seems I’ve got no excuse,” he said. He sat cross-legged on the ground, and put Marlene on his knee. “But you gotta help me because I’ve only got the one hand.”

She tilted her head back to smile up him and nodded.

They worked together, Barret choosing the flowers and Marlene threading them, until they had made a daisy chain long enough for Barret's wrist.

“You look pretty,” Marlene said, as Barret showed it off to her. He bounced her on his knee and she giggled.

“Not as pretty as my little girl,” he said. She looked up at him again, and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Even if this was a dream he felt determined to remember every moment of it.

“Daddy’s gonna come home as soon as he can,” he said, and Marlene half-turned to give him the closest thing to a hug she could manage with her small arms. “Daisy-chain promise.”

* * *

The dream receded and Barret fell into a deep and empty sleep. In the morning he was awoken by the now-familiar sound of Cloud — who had apparently never learned how to live with others — knocking around and getting his equipment ready. For once it didn’t feel worth shouting at him about it. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up but paused before standing because something on the bedside table had caught his eye.

He reached out and picked it up gently for fear of damaging it.

It was a daisy chain.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [twitter](http://twitter.com/theoceanblooms) or [tumblr](http://spectroscopes.tumblr.com)! If you really liked this fic, it would be lovely if you could [reblog](https://www.tumblr.com/reblog/621516850865569792/x7RwzH3H) on tumblr.


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